


Under the starry skies

by LadyLigeia07



Category: What does the fox say? - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-03-25 00:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13822914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLigeia07/pseuds/LadyLigeia07
Summary: Trying to forget the past.





	1. Part 1

Under the starry skies

(Part 1)

Since Seju Baek decided to stay at the house her mother had lived for a while, day after day she noticed that she felt a lot of relief by writing letters to Sumin Sung, the girl who had been the love of her life since they were just teenagers. She was aware that those times would never come back and that Sumin had found joy and love between other woman’s arms. When she took the decision of letting Sumin go, she thought that she wouldn’t have been able to forget her, or finding a new love that was totally hers.

Those times seemed so far away in this distant house in the middle of the countryside, a place where she could meet peace and a way to reflect on all the decisions she had made over the years. All the good and the bad, the relationship with her family and a lot more.

Alone in her bedroom one evening, she started writing one of those letters that could have helped her in this moment of transition in her life.

“Dear Sumin:

This is the first time I’m writing something like this. Even if I’m not planning on sending you these words, I find comfort in remembering all the thoughts and the feelings I always had for you. I hope you are doing well, and that Sungji is giving you all the love that you deserve that I wasn’t able to give you a long time ago.

We were so young the first time we met. Those days at school seem to be stuck in my heart, and the deep pain I feel brings to my mind tender memories that shake my soul as I was reviving all those moments again. The sweet and melancholic memory of our youth; days that seem lost forever, but the most important for me since I started dating you. Do you remember how happy we were? How happy was I having you as my real first love and friend? You gave me so many things, Sumin. You offered me your sincere feelings and the love I was only capable of feeling when I was with you. When I was having you in my arms, I could feel that I could continue living without considering all the hate of my father’s family, their contempt, and resentment. You gave me so much love that compensated the lack of those feelings from the world around me. You made me feel important and desirable. You were all that I would have ever wanted, a cheerful and pretty girl I could only dream of. Those important times seem so far away now, but the memory of those tender moments will accompany me until the end of my days.

Sometimes I can see my mother in my dreams, and occasionally I think of how much I would have liked to talk to her, have a real relationship with someone I could consider as family. Despite the fact I had hated her so many times in my life for making me live in a world full of misery… now I regret those feelings. Did she ever love my father? I wonder. I only know she was young and pretty. In my dreams, I can see her beautiful green eyes fixated on me with an expression of contrasting feelings; joy and sadness, love and bitterness. If we had known each other, would have she loved me?

In this place, I can feel her presence, like if part of her soul were still here. I smile because the bizarre idea of her watching over me like a guardian angel came to my mind so often in these days. Every day I watch the sun rising from my window and the sweet smell of the yellow apricot flowers reaches my nostrils and fills me with a delicate sensation of pure joy. I like to believe she is by my side, keeping me company, resting her delicate hands on my shoulders while whispering in my ear: “My dear girl, you are not alone. I will be forever here with you.” When I imagine this, I wish I can understand if her words contain somehow healing hope, or veiled, sweet menace, like that of a ghost who wants selfishly to keep a beloved one in this world against their will. I would like to understand my feelings better, for this woman I have never known.

I wonder about so many things in these days.

When I came here, I found the housekeeper, Do-won, who my father had hired to keep the house clean and in good shape. She usually calls for maintenance when there’s something not working, like the air conditioning or the plumbing system. She has the phone numbers of the most reliable specialized workers here around. She knows everything. The moment I was emptying some of the boxes I had brought in here from the hotel where I stayed a few days before moving, I held an orange rope in my hands, thinking of you and having insane thoughts about hurting myself. Do-won silently approached me and with a somehow worried expression, asked me if I was going to need that object. I wonder if she could read my mind.

When I finally arrived with the last two suitcases in front of the door, she smiled at me in a very gentle way and said to me she was going in the kitchen to prepare something special for me. I’ll admit, her velvety voice is quite relaxing and that she is a good cook too. I didn’t expect to see someone this professional. She is a real serious person with everything related to housekeeping and a lot more. Sometimes I see her following me with her gray eyes when I’m around the house, like if she was concerned or at least interested in my wellbeing. Who knows what my half-brother told her about me.

There are many memories of the recent past in this old style house. In the room my mother had slept in, there was an old record player, maybe belonged to my father. There is a bunch of vinyl records of American singers in a shabby storage trunk in a corner. Since the first time I went into that place, I began roaming around, poking into my mother’s old clothes and belongings. There’s a canopy bed covered with white blankets and a tall armoire. I began listening to some of the vinyl discs. I ended putting some of them in my own room together with the old turntable. Especially, there’s a song that reminds me of my feelings for you… and about how our history together ended.

Sorry dear, I can’t go on writing to you today.”

Seju looked around herself with tears in her eyes, looking at her fine decorated bedroom with a blurry gaze. All the furniture she decided to bring in the place she would be sleeping had an elegant, yet a cold splendor. There was a comfortable queen size bed in pearl color, a nightstand with a delicate crystal finish, a dresser of the same fashion, two chests, a vanity table and a bed bench in silver color.

The mahogany Regency desk where she was writing on, a chair and some pictures hanging on the wall were the only things she had found in the room when she came in the first time. Her bedroom was a home office before.

She stretched her hand to the record player at the right corner of her desk, and put the vinyl disc laying aside on the platter, then she held the tone arm and put it in the right place, at the last, she pressed on the start button.

The music filled the air.

_**Break it to me gently,** _   
_**Let me down the easy way** _   
_**Make me feel you still love me** _   
_**If it's just if it's just for one more day** _

She felt tears starting to roll down her cheeks. It was inevitable. Any time she listened to that song, the effect was the same.

_**Break it to me gently** _   
_**So my tears, my tears won't fall too fast** _   
_**If you must go, then go slowly,** _   
_**Let me love you 'till the last** _

She remembered the first time she met Sumin in high school, the first time they talked freely in the library. All the gifts she gave to her not because she wanted to show her wealth like some gossipers said, but because Sumin was the first girl she felt she could be herself without masking her feelings, and the first girl she ever loved… and probably the last.

_**The love we shared, for, oh, so long** _   
_**Is such a big part of me** _   
_**If you must take your love away,** _   
_**Take it gradually** _

She remembered all the ten years they had been together with their ups and downs, and the words of Sumin, a bit after she had broken up with Sungji the first time: “We are nothing more than cowards without the courage of finishing things properly”, her own words after that: “You never cried like this before.” And her answer: “Yes, I did it… once”

She knew Sumin was talking about her.

**_Oh, oh, break it, break it to me gently,_ **   
**_Give me time, oh give me a little time to ease the pain_ **   
**_Love me just a little longer_ **

She had not been able to forgive herself all those years for what she had done to Sumin at the moment she needed her the most. When she was still mourning her parents and suffering, she slept with a stupid bartender and Sumin discovered them in her bedroom.

_Forgive me, my love, forgive me, because I gave you only pain and I just tried to keep you with me without you loving me anymore._

Her thoughts mingled with her tears, and the last words of the song touched her heart deeply and painfully.

**_'Cause I'll never, never love again,_ **

**_'Cause I'll never love again._ **

_I didn’t want for us to finish like this, without a bit of a hope for me. I would have wished to leave you happy memories to keep in your heart, but I wasn’t able to do even this little_. _Do you remember the first day of snow in Seoul last year? I decided to let you go after I realized you were crying for the person you had just lost and no more for me. Do you remember? It was the first time I didn’t do something selfish to keep you with me._

_I just want to keep the memory of your gentle hands caressing my face, long ago, when you thought I was sick, and you tried in your typical gentle way to cheer me up. In that instant I thought I could have guessed your thoughts; you believed you were doing so little for me when it was quite the contrary; I had given you many little gifts that cost me only my father’s money, your caresses instead were priceless._

_Will I be able to forget you completely one day?_

To be continued…

 

**®Song by Brenda Lee (Break it to me gently).**


	2. A town without pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do-Won's story

Under the starry skies

(A town without pity)

 

She put her unfinished cup of tea on the table and looked at her interlocutor with her beautiful and expressive eyes. “Would you like to hear my story?” she asked suddenly to the girl in front of her. This girl was wearing a flowery dress and her red hair was tied back with a white ribbon. She had a cup of herbal tea in her hands and smiling slightly, she nodded.

“It seems it was so far away, but only a bit more than ten years had passed since the first moment I met Nari by the swimming pool where our instructor was preparing us for the next competition. It would have been the last of that year between different swim clubs. She was a gorgeous and intelligent girl. She was about my age and she had refined features with pretty, pink natural lips. I don’t remember exactly when we started talking to each other, touching on different subjects, most of them about what we were doing at school and the hobbies we had. I still remember her gaze, the way she moved, her slim figure and the way she smiled at me. I loved everything about her: her soft skin, her silky long, black hair. When we were in the locker room, after taking the usual shower after training, I would help her with her hair. I loved combing and caressing her long locks, they were so soft and shiny. This is the best memory I had from those days, and the moments we stayed together were the most wonderful and meaningful of my whole life.

You know when you have that special feeling you have found your perfect soulmate it seems your entire world revolves around it. This was she for me. We got used to each other quickly and started hanging around like two old friends. After school, we would go to my house and stayed in my bedroom for hours. She liked to tell me about her life and the things she liked to do, like writing poems and little stories of fairies and tender lovers. I loved her so much. I couldn’t admit this at that time because I was still a bit confused about my feelings and I was so shy, too. Her father was a strict and closed-minded man who always compared her and her successes to those of her older brother. Why can some parents be this cruel? I wondered at that time.

She was so sweet and intelligent, and no one besides me was capable to understand all the value in that pretty and kind soul.

The other day, when I heard you listening to those old songs, one of them reminded me clearly of my situation those days. The song talks about a town without pity. Do you remember it?”

The red haired girl remembered it. The sound of those vinyl records wasn’t clear, nevertheless, they were fascinating in their own way, like if they were part of a vanished world; something lost in the waves of time but with a great, powerful way to evoke tender memories of something beautiful and gone.

“Yeah, I remember it,” she said, with eyes full of tears like the day before; when Do-Won had knocked on her door to ask if she wanted something to drink. Do-Won had seen her tears and had said, “I feel bad when I see you crying like this. I notice it even when you try to avoid my gaze to conceal your red eyes. I also know that you sleep badly during the nights because your tired mien in the morning speaks of it and of a great suffering. Can I ask something from you? Whenever you feel like crying, come to me, you can rely on me. I won’t say to others anything that you would like to tell me.”

Seju felt a lot of relief in her caring words; that girl, Do-Won, had a good way to put things. She sounded sympathetic and truly interested in her as a person.

“Why does that song remind you so much about the old days?” Seju asked with curiosity.

“Because when I think of my old suffering I can remember it again through that song, and even if it happened a long time ago, its wounds still hurt me.”

Do-Won made a pause and asked Seju if she wanted another cup of herbal tea. It was a warm afternoon and rays of bright sun filtered through the open window in the kitchen. They were sitting on stuffed chairs in front of the table. The furniture looked like some of those in the old fifties’ American movies. There were cabinets painted in orange color, quartzite countertops, soft yellow backsplash, and steel appliances.

Seju shook her head and added:

“Would you like to tell me some more?”

“Yeah, I lived in an old town where my parents and my grandparents were born and lived there their whole lives, a place full of ancient traditions and retrograde ideas, I hated it.

Seju remembered part of the whole song:

**_When you're young and so and love as we…_ **   
_**And bewildered by the world we see** _   
_**Why do people hurt us so** _   
_**Only those in love would know** _   
_**What a Town Without Pity can do…** _

_**If we stop to gaze upon a star…**_  
**_People talk about how bad we are_**  
 ** _Ours is not an easy age_**  
 ** _We're like tigers in a cage_**  
 ** _What a town without pity can do…_**

**_Take these eager lips and hold me fast…_**  
_**I'm afraid this kind of joy can't last**_  
 _ **How can we keep love alive**_  
 _ **How can anything survive**_  
 _ **When these little minds tear you in two**_  
 _ **What a town Without Pity can do…**_

“Did someone discover you both and did something bad to you?”

Do-Won replied with a trembling voice.

“Yes, they did, and teared us in pieces like the song says.”

My father discovered us in my bedroom while kissing as we had done so many times. I still can hear his voice full of rage, the way he treated me, and his hands slapping me, yelling at me that I was going to raise a scandal in the family with my behavior. He stared at me as if he hated me. ‘I only thought she was a classmate, don’t you understand what this whole thing means?’ I remember my mother crying in despair, a great confusion, and at last a terrifying silence. It was a beautiful dream that shattered against the hard reality. I was so afraid at that time that my memories became confused about what exactly happened at that moment and about what happened later.

Maybe I was only so shocked after my father revealed to me the truth, that part of my mind tried to conceal that fact from my consciousness for a while. I remember that my mother entered the room and cried, like if someone had wounded her physically. I still can hear my mother’s bitter voice and my father following her out of the door of our small house, screaming, ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Mi-na! I hope that you’ll forgive me one day! There’s nothing we can do to fix the past!’ While she retorted, ‘Sadly, I never thought you would allow the friendship between these girls knowing you were the father of both of them. Where is your decency?!’ My father sounded disappointed and sad; ‘What do you believe I am? I made a mistake but I would never have made something to encourage a friendship between these girls. How shameless do you think I am?!’ My mother responded ‘I think you allowed calmly that that girl visited our house because you would have the chance to see her more often. How can I believe you when I always knew you never loved me? You probably wanted to see your own daughter around you like if she were thousands better than the child we had!’

It looked like an old Greek tragedy; at least it had all the appearance.

My father had had an affair with Nari’s mother when both were married, and my lover born from that guilty relationship. Her ‘father’ didn’t break up with her mother due to an important business going between their families and accepted to give the child his name but he always considered it a dishonor and Nari paid the consequence of other people’s behavior. Poor, innocent girl.

She was my half-sister then; the secret finally revealed destroyed our lives. Nari went away from that place with her family and I couldn’t see her ever again. I know that she tried to contact me through an old friend, but I didn’t want to deal with that page of my past life. You can’t imagine what had meant for me to open the box of such a bunch of lies and dishonesty. My father left us. I remember entering my mom’s bedroom one night, she was awake, and nervously she asked me if my father wanted me to be that girl’s friend. I had suffered so much in silence after my father’s confession that I wanted someone to understand me so desperately. I told my mother the truth about Nari and I… and I will regret it forever.

After some time my mother finished in a psychiatric hospital because she slashed her wrists. I still can see her dressed in a white gown with her face wet from tears, her eyes closed, pale as dead. There was blood all over her body and over the bed, and a knife on the floor.

When I speak of a tragedy, the image of my mother hurting herself comes often in my mind when I remember those days. Trauma and insanity, and a lost, cruel town without pity…

 

 

_To be continued…_

® “Town Without Pity” by Gene Pitney 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my friend Cherry for the proofreading. ^^


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations

Chapter 3

That morning, Seju woke up earlier than other times. She remembered clearly what Do-Won had said to her the day before, during the afternoon: "Any time people we loved the most part from us, leave us good and bad memories that we should learn to treasure because they always teach us something important. With this, I’m trying to explain to you that whatever happens in our lives, there's no excuse to stop dreaming and loving with all of our hearts. The girl you loved, Sumin, stopped thinking of you as someone she wanted as her partner her whole life, and this happened many years ago, based on the details you gave me. From the moment your relationship with her started showing signs of lack of sincere commitment and true feelings, you both did nothing but hurt each other. Is this what you consider a fulfilling relationship?

I ask you this because I am sure that none of you wanted this from a love story that was so tender and deep at the beginning. What I really want to tell you is that sometimes in our lives we can love with all ourselves, but even the sweetest things can end and the most sincere feelings can turn into something negative that none of the lovers ever wanted.”

Seju still had in her memory the exact moment this happened. They were again in the kitchen, sitting in front of the table drinking tea as they usually did every day. Perhaps Do-Won noticed the dark shadows under her eyes and her pale cheeks. Do-Won looked concerned and after sighing, she approached her directly. She asked her for how much time she intended to mourn her lost love. “Because I know you aren't here to mourn the death of your father,” she added.

Seju looked at her with a shocking surprise even if there were nothing rude in Do-Won way to question her. Her voice always had that velvety sound that made everything she said so caring and soft. Maybe she didn’t expect Do-Won to go straight to the core of the problem.

At that point, Seju decided to open her heart to her completely. She started crying, as she had never done for a long time. She had been living in that house for some months now, but even if she tried to forget about her sad feelings, until that moment it had been nearly impossible. She needed to open her soul to another human being. Her tears flowed without control because she also remembered that Sumin had been her only confident as well as her only love. Furthermore, Sumin gave her a reason for living in a world that didn't want her.

She began talking freely about her feelings and about the betrayal and the passion that involved what she called love. She talked about her family and about the half-brother who suggested for her to live in that house. Even if he was part of the same hateful family, he was the only one she talked to, and at the same time the one who hurt Sumin so badly once in the past. She never truly understood that man, but at least he was there when she needed him.

Do-Won looked at her with tender compassion; she was so sweet and tactful. She listened to everything until the end, only her eyes revealed an undefined feeling when she mentioned her half- brother, Saehyun.

In the following days, Seju wanted to ask her what exactly her brother had told her and how much she knew about her family's history, but as happened many times, she refrained from making somehow careless questions. She didn’t understand how she feared so much information about Saehyun and the rest of her family.

After having someone talking to her this sincerely, Seju began feeling truly comfortable when she had Do-Won around, something that happened many times along the day. Do-Won was always busy, tidying up the rooms, preparing their meals, fixing the house’s little problems. Seju’s heart felt lifted from all the painful thoughts she had had in those days about her past and the people she dealt with for the good and the bad. Seju realized that Sumin had started becoming a tender memory of a past happiness and she understood that she was at a single step to be over that obsession that had become an essential yet a negative part of her life.

One of those nights she had a curious dream: She saw Sumin playing on the swing at the same place where many years ago, Sumin confessed her feelings to her while pleading: “Please, I don't want you to go to study abroad. Stay here, with me, because I love you.” Her eyes were full of tears and sorrow as those of that day. The playground was illuminated by the silver clear moonlight, and at some point Seju saw her own sorrow reflected in those eyes, and those were no more Sumin's eyes, but hers. It seemed all so real as if it weren’t part of a dream but part of a true, painful experience. Seju had loved Sumin with all her mind, body and soul; but they were no longer who they were in those nostalgic years of their youth, a long time passed and their feelings changed because they changed.

“Please, don't go,” pleaded Sumin, again.

Seju was again herself in that dream, and after caressing Sumin's cheek and kissing her tenderly on her open, soft mouth, she answered, “It's time for me to go, don't cry for what we have lost, think instead of all the love we had had for each other. There will always be a special place in my heart for you because I loved you with all myself. Nobody will erase the years we have been together and no one will replace you in that little, special place in my heart.”

Sumin seemed surprised by her words, but looking at Seju's eyes, she understood her deep thoughts; everything was as if she had listened to the voice of a possible future where they were not destined to be together, nevertheless they had something important to remember, something deep and meaningful to treasure as long as they lived.

Seju woke up from that dream with wet cheeks, and she tasted the salt flavor of her own tears through her lips. It was already morning.

_I want to remember all we had as something important for me and for you, too. I don't want to spend my time thinking about what it would have been if we were together until now._

She felt a great relief after her thoughts. With a swift movement, she got up from the bed and walking to the window, she listened a little bird singing; it was standing on the exterior sill. When she opened the glass panels, the little creature flew away. She smiled thinking of it as a sign of good omen. As a proof of a bright future upcoming in her life, a splendid golden sun greeted her that morning.

In fact, that was a beautiful spring day, the right moment to start everything again. She went to her desk and grabbed one of the vinyl discs besides the turnover. All of those old songs seemed so sad; however, she wanted to listen to them because they helped her to have a better insight of her feelings. Now, she wanted to understand if something had changed since the last time she had listened to those discs laying here and there with tears in her eyes.

She chose one of those songs which melody and lyrics pierced her soul easily.

**_Why does the sun go on shining_ **

**_Why does the sea rush to shore_ **

**_Don't they know it's the end of the world_ **

**_'Cause you don't love me any more_ **

 

**_Why do the birds go on singing_ **

**_Why do the stars glow above_ **

**_Don't they know it's the end of the world_ **

**_It ended when I lost your love_ **

Those lyrics reminded her how easy it was to blame herself for all her unwanted love and how much she desired to cling to the self-compassion that made her feel so miserable. She didn't have the right to impose her feelings on others. She even allowed Sumin to wound her in many painful ways, like when she slept with other girls letting her know everything she was doing with them by leaving her cell phone on, on purpose.

**_I wake up in the morning and I wonder_ **

**_Why everything's the same as it was_ **

**_I can't understand, no, I can't understand_ **

**_How life goes on the way it does_ **

How much they had hurt each other, how much sense of misery she had endured all those years. Sumin wanted only to be free, but she couldn't free herself. Seju thought again of her half-brother, and how cruelly he had wounded Sumin with a knife while cursing her. What was going on in that guy’s mind at that moment? Sumin was indeed afraid of what had happened but had agreed with her and her father to keep the attack as a secret from the authorities. The mutual fear and sense of guilt played into keeping both together since then.

**_Why does my heart go on beating_ **

**_Why do these eyes of mine cry_ **

**_Don't they know it's the end of the world_ **

**_It ended when you said goodbye_ **

Some tears flowed uncontrollably from Seju’s eyes, yet she smiled.

_Goodbye, my love, be free and happy. I will never forget how lucky I was having you._

_*_

Some days passed and Seju’s house garden was in its full spring season. She started thinking that eventually, she might go back to Seoul to take the reins of Hello Studio’s company again, but there was something that refrained her to do that. Probably she knew that deep inside she wasn’t still ready to see Sumin and Sung-ji again.

Do-Won was solicitous as always, but one day while serving her a glass of fresh lemonade, she asked:

“Don’t you think it is a bit out of the ordinary that your half-brother had chosen your name? You had never thought it was… peculiar, to say the least?”

Seju had given her that piece of information one day while they were talking about her family. She looked into her eyes, and even if Do-Won had hoped to be polite and careful with her question, Seju guessed what she had thought.

“Tell me straight what you are implying with your question. I promise I won’t get offended by anything you will say to me.”

Do-Won swallowed, uncomfortable.

“Are you sure your father is who you think he is?”

 

_To be continued…_

® Song by Skeeter Davis - The End of The World

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to dear Cherry for the proofreading. :)


	4. Ahn Cha Hee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seju's mother past

Ahn Cha Hee

(Love remembered)

 

Saehyun couldn’t recall when it was the last time he had had that nightmare that always made him wake up trembling and cold, sweating like if he was still there, in that place, on the day Ahn Cha Hee committed suicide by hanging herself from the chandelier of her bedroom. He could remember someone crying the night before, but his memory had played tricks on him in those years. He had avoided consulting a psychiatrist in Korea because he feared that everyone in the family would have lost their respect for him if they were aware he had been suffering from a mental disorder. He always wished to know more about what exactly had happened in those gone forever days. One instant he saw Anh looking out the window, the moment later she was cold in his arms. Some tears on her pale cheeks that weren’t hers… but his. What really had happened that day?

She was smiling at him like many other days, she looked out the window and then parted her lips to say something. He had always loved her beautiful smile and her expressive green eyes. She was everything he had ever wanted, but she was his father’s mistress. He was so young at that time and full of romantic ideas about women. When Seju was born, he remembered that he had considered the child his. Why? It would have been truly useful being capable to bring his memories to light. Those days were wonderful and full of passion and dreams… but a moment later she was dead, lost forever. Did she hang herself in that place? Really?

He couldn’t believe it. She was happy after having the child, he was sure of it. Why would she have ever wanted to end her life?

He always had woken up at that moment, sweating after seeing her in his dreams, smiling and then her pale, expressionless face. She was dead, the baby crying in her room. _What had happened?_

The night before, he could remember that she was in the living room, talking to someone. He was outside placing his ear on the mahogany door, trying to understand what they were saying. He was eighteen at that time, and he loved her immensely. He tried to catch something from the keyhole of the door. He could see someone in a tailored suit. Who was that man? She was sitting on a vintage armchair and she was crying. He couldn’t understand what they were saying.

How useful it would have been if he had gotten a diagnosis of his condition in those days before the tragedy happened. At least, he wouldn’t have had the regrets he had now, he would have remembered exactly what had happened to her.

For years, he had tried to fight against his problem with meds bought from the black market, risking damaging his health irreversible. He was released from that terrible situation after he went to live in another country.

Talking about the tragedy with a psychiatrist, she suggested the hypothesis that Anh had been suffering from post-partum depression.

“It can’t be,” he said with a firm voice, “because she was happy… I’m sure she was.”

The psychiatrist, Miss Wilson, looking at him with a compassionate and understanding expression, reckoned:

“But you weren’t fully aware of your actions those days; otherwise you would have remembered better what happened in that house. You said to me you couldn’t even remember well what she had said to you the day before her death.”

He always knew that by that time, his condition had compromised everything he had always wanted to know. He had been suffering from psychotic depression. He wasn’t even sure about the conversation he had listened from the living room the day before Anh’s death.

He was a sad youngster on those days, a sadness that was understandable because he loved her and even if she had denied the baby was his, something deep inside had told him she was lying. Why? Was she afraid of him revealing her secret? He wouldn’t have done anything to harm her, there was nothing to be afraid of. Why didn’t she trust him?

He remembered when his father called him asking him to go back to Korea. There were many important things going in his father’s companies and as one of his heirs, he needed to be there and attend a large number of meetings. He hated his siblings. He hated that they talked behind’s Seju’s back, who had the right to be there and take part in any big discussion about the management of their father’s business, even if she was still very young.

He was aware that he couldn’t show any special affection to her, she was totally oblivious of her own past and never asked him questions about her mother and her life. He assumed that Seju couldn’t feel anything for a woman she couldn’t remember, knowing her at such a young age. He could only sense the resentment in Seju’s voice in the rare occasions she talked about Ahn. He would have liked to tell her many things about her mother, but he didn’t know how to talk about Ahn without showing his real feelings for her.

He wanted with all his might to demonstrate to Seju that she was important to him, but he always feared she might not believe him if he talked about the real reason of his affection. He was aware that Seju liked women and even if this surprised him the first time his father talked about it, he didn’t judge her as most of their siblings did.

In one of his following visits to Korea, his father told him about Seju and her difficult situation with her girlfriend. He said, “My precious girl is so sad these days, Sumin was the only one she could depend on on, the only one she trusted. I always felt affection for that girl and you know that I did many things for her after her parents passed away. Now everything is finished, they broke up recently.”

Saehyun was upset and shaken after his father had told him what had happened to Seju. He couldn’t understand what Seju had seen in that insignificant girl. He had known her casually years before, she was a cute girl with dark hair and big eyes, but he hadn’t seen anything interesting in her.

He couldn’t remember well the bundle of emotions that made him go insane in those days, after visiting Seju in her apartment and looking at the painful manifestation of her suffering. She was lying on her bed like if she had only wanted to die. One of the next days, he grabbed a bottle of a transparent substance from the bathroom’s cabinet and a knife from the kitchen. He followed Sumin down the streets because he knew where she lived. When they arrived at a bad illuminated corner, after the girl had been in a store buying scented candles, he attacked her by pressing a handkerchief soaked in chloroform on her face. The girl lost consciousness.

He dragged her into his car and brought her to an abandoned warehouse where he proceeded to torture her with the knife.

“You are nothing but scum, now I’m cursing you for what you did. In this way, you’ll remember forever.”

He could remember the girl crying silently, too terrorized to shout for help, the substance still affecting her system. He could have raped her if he had wanted, to mark her soul indelibly, but he couldn’t. He only left several wounds on her right arm and abandoned her while still crying in that dark and dirty place. He went to his father afterwards.

He admitted to his father that he had gone ‘mad’, and after his father paid for all Sumin’s expenses at the hospital, Saehyun talked to him, trying to explain what he had done and why. His father seemed disappointed and horrified after his story. That day, in his main office, his father looked through the window after all Saehyun had said, and replied with an absent expression, “I understand you, and commiserate you. You weren’t yourself when you committed that crime. It happens sometimes, even to the most stable people to lose control at least once in their lives.”

After taking his leave, Saehyun went out to find comfort drinking his problems away in a bar until three in the morning. Then he went to sleep in his apartment.

After having a restless sleep, he woke up. Suddenly, he saw the sun through his bedroom’s window. He remembered Anh’s eyes and her empty expression after her death. One moment later, he immersed himself in his memories and closed his eyes. She was still there, sitting on that vintage armchair. He heard someone slapping her and a harsh voice yelling:

“How dare you! Did you sleep with my son?!”

He opened his eyes, and sitting on the windowsill, he saw her, smiling at him. He had never seen her as beautiful as in that perfect moment.

That image was the embodiment of all his present and past feelings, her smile was a balsam to his wounded soul.

“Anh Cha Hee,” he whispered.

Knowing that he would never be able to forget her and that he was sentenced to a long life full of dark and nostalgic dreams, cruel nightmares for a damned soul.

 

_To be continued_


	5. Sealed with a kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysteries of the past half revealed

Sealed with a kiss

 

They just have had dinner when both decided to watch something on the TV in the living room before going to sleep. They sat down before the large screen with two cups of sliced peaches topped with whipped cream and sweet cherries. They started watching an American action movie with little interest before ending up embracing each other and rolling down the floor where the older of the two opened the younger one’s shirt and started spreading the whipped cream left in the cups on her beautiful, naked breasts, sucking her nipples while the young blondie started moaning in pleasure.

There had been many days, and even more nights, when they didn’t lie down the bed and began pleasuring each other with their lips and hands in whatever place they got caught by the inspiration. Sumin’s fingers were skillful and Sungji’s lips were the hottest thing she had ever tasted as well as her pink, delicate nipples. Sungji’s moans and cries of pleasure were the natural elixir to her tiring after-work life.

Sumin had been waiting for some documents that had been sent with the postal services, and before going to sleep that night, she went downstairs to check in her mailbox near the concierge’s front office. She found the documents she was expecting and a letter in a luxury envelope. It was a letter from Seju. The letter had the seal with the date of two days before.

Sungji had fallen sleep after they kissed each other for the night and she was surprised when she woke up by midnight and didn’t see Sumin lying sleep on her side of the bed. The blond girl saw the light of the living room still on and intrigued she got up to go there. She found Sumin sitting on the sofa before the coffee table, holding a sheet of paper in her hands… she was crying.

 

_Dear Sumin:_

_I started writing this letter without a clear vision of what I wanted to tell you. The days here in my dead mother’s house has passed faster than I imagined, and the fate has deserved many surprises for me. I hope you are doing well, and that the chores of all of you in the company aren’t harder without me around. I needed to take a time off work to reflect on my future and myself. I planned to write you many letters since I arrived in this house. I didn’t have the courage to send those to you but in the end, I decided to send you the last one I wrote._

_Many things have happened since the last time we saw each other, anyway I’m planning to stay in this house for another month before going back to my life in Seoul._

_I don’t know what you will think about this but one of my brothers sent me a message the other day to inform me that my brother, Saehyun, has been found dead in his apartment. I wasn't prepared for this, but I think your reaction will be completely different from mine. I know that you have good reasons to hate him and, in a way, I’ve always felt uncomfortable having him around, even if I regret these feelings now. The document I received yesterday from the hands of Saehyun’s lawyer tells me that, apparently, he decided to leave his share of inheritance to me._

_His lawyer took the trouble to come to the countryside where I’m now, to show me my brother’s will, but there’s something else too. I don’t know if this is true but… his lawyer entrusted me with a confidence. I still think it is unbelievable and whatever Saehyun had told him must be interpreted as a consequence of his emotional instability and nothing else. According to his lawyer, Saeyhun thought he was my biological father. Is it remotely possible? I still think it is only a speculation without any basis. To be honest, I want to believe this because I’m not ready to accept any truth even if it exists. I only knew he met my mother before I was born and that he had been sent to this countryside house because he had a breakdown and needed to leave the school. All of this sounds unusual and almost weird, to say the least._

_Anyway, the days I pass here around the house or listening to some old music recordings, has given me the time to reflect on what I thought I had lost and what now I have. I learned that the past can teach you something and the future can give you pleasurable surprises._

_To be honest, sometimes I’m afraid that this place will stay forever like a paradise in my memory, something beautiful that still has its secrets but despite everything it’s a wonderful place to live in._

_My mother, as any other person in the world, had her secrets, but these are things I don’t want to know. No matter what._

 

When Sumin finished reading the letter she had tears in her eyes, she didn’t ever expect Seju would have written something this compelling just to express her feelings and concerns. She still remembered the time both were so in love that they could have never imagined going their separate ways. Yes, fate is always full of surprises. That part of her past was so important to her, and even if she knew that there was nothing to gain by remembering the sweet long lost days, she couldn’t forget her past this easily. She had wanted to move on, to have someone new she could treasure and love, and now all of her desires were incarnated in her blond and young girlfriend. Sumin was satisfied with her life again. For a moment, she admitted that it might sound selfish but it was true. However, there were many things that still linked her to her past, not only because of her lost love for Seju but also for the sufferings they had shared together. Her memory went to that day when a police officer visited her in the hospital after Saehyun had attacked her, asking if she wanted to file a report. She couldn’t have the strength to do something of that sort, not after having a conversation with Seju’s father right after she had been treated in the hospital and a nurse had put her to bed. Seju’s father had paid for the best treatments and the best private room. He looked desperate and asked her to forgive Saehyun. He would do anything for her, whatever she had asked just to avoid a scandal about his ‘ill’ son. Sumin knew him enough to understand that he wasn’t doing this for paternal love but just to avoid journalists poking their noses in the secrets of his family. Yeah, secrets… if what Seju had been told were true?

Sumin took a handkerchief to wipe her tears and while doing so, she picked up her cell phone lying on the coffee table to look for news about Saehyun’s death. There was only something on the most renowned newspaper website, but the related article mentioned only some of the events, there was nothing about the causes of his death. She got really surprised by this. She picked up the letter to read some of its lines again.

At that moment, Sungji entered the living room and watched her with a concerned look.

*

Saehyun had been having the same thoughts those days. Alone in his apartment, he continued to dwell on his past memories. He led a reclusive life, something very different from his siblings who loved to participate to the best social events and actively searched for the attention of celebrity tabloids’ photographers.

After having the same visions for so many years, he didn’t more question himself if those visions were symptoms of his depression or just a divine punishment for his pasts wrongdoings. He didn’t expect the ‘ghost’ of Ahn would ever reveal to him the truth she had been hiding all those years. However, in those days, after insisting that Seju visited her mother’s home, he took his time to go errands in the city, trying to look for a good present for her. When she would have come back, he wanted to receive her with something of her liking. The task resulted harder than expected. He scratched his head trying to remember what Seju’s tastes in perfumes and jewelry were. Finally, he found a fine gold bracelet in the Cartier store of the Gamgnam district that would be of her liking.

He decided to have lunch in an exclusive restaurant of this area. He looked around the tables before sitting, fearing he might find some of his siblings there. They considered him one of the black sheep of the family, along with one of his brothers who was an addicted gambler and Seju. Sometimes, Seju wasn’t even mentioned in some family gatherings because for some relatives she wasn’t part of their family.

During the afternoon, he went to meet his lawyer. Right after his father’s funeral, Saehyun had had a hard time with him because he refused to follow his advice about how to invest his share of fortune. Saehyun had supposed that his father didn’t want to leave anything to Seju to protect her. It was a good idea, some of his siblings were so morally depraved that they would leave no stone unturned to harm her if his father had left her a big share of the inheritance.  

Instead, he had received the biggest share. When his father’s lawyer read them the will, leaving to his siblings his possessions and companies, there was a clause regarding his share of fortune. Some of his brothers were disturbed by it, because with that disposition no one, besides Saehyun, would have known the exact amount of money he received.

Anyway, they were so happy that Seju had received only the actual company she was leading and a small villa- so crumbs- to pay attention to that detail.

“Scumbags!” Saehyun cursed in the middle of the street remembering that fact. One or two people nearby turned around and watched him with curiosity. He stopped in front of the building where his lawyer had his firm.

Speaking to Saehyun, his lawyer asked again if he weren’t interested in investing, at least part of his fortune in the stock market. He had gotten some interesting news about the market trend that very morning.

“No, I’m not interested,” Saehyun replied plainly. “And there’s something else. I would like you to draw up my will, if you don’t mind.”

“Will? But you are still young and you don’t have neither a wife nor children.”

“I would like to clarify some things,” he said.

*

“He was found dead in his apartment by the domestic helper.” This and nothing else was written in one of the most important newspapers of the city. Sumin sighed. That morning she had woken up early to go out and pick up the journal. It seemed she was late to the news. Probably there had been more articles about that matter days before. It was weird; she hadn’t heard anything from the news on TV. Seju’s family might have a great influence around to make reporters treat the loss in the family with discretion, she thought. She asked the newspaper vendor if he could provide her some copies of the past days’ newspapers. He answered smiling to come the following day to his booth; he surely might have something for her.

Going back home, she met Sungji preparing the table to have breakfast. After this, they needed to go to work. It would be a busy day.

*

“Why do I cry so much? Why?”

She looked at him with her beautiful green eyes and kissed him. Her lips were cold as ice and when she parted from him, she told him with a melancholic tone: “You can’t see what you don’t want to see.”

He stared at her pale face, her white dress swaying as a delicate flower in the morning breeze. It was a sunny day in the garden of a countryside house. White rose’s bushes were everywhere, surrounding them.

“What I don’t want to see?”

“This, my love,” she said, rolling up the lacey sleeves of her dress, exposing her wrists. There were red welts all around them, like if she had been tied up.

“Don’t you remember?”

Saeyhun woke up sweating like had happened many times, but this time he remembered. Ahn had red welts around her wrists but there was no sign of strings nearby her dead body.

Then he remembered his father’s words a long time ago:

“It happens sometimes, even to the most stable people to lose control at least once in their lives.”

_To be continued…_

The title of this story was inspired by the song: ®“Sealed with a kiss” by Brian Hyland.


	6. Do-Won and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Hope you all enjoy it.

Do-Won and me

 

Seju’s diary:

_Dreamy summer of the year 201…_

_I have never thought that one day I would be able to write a personal diary as I’m doing now. I can say, without exaggeration, that this has been one of the best summers of my entire life. ‘She’ shows me her affection without reserve at any time of the day. Her warm love embraces me with an almost maternal, protective touch. I love her and I know it, she loves me and she knows it. Her love nourishes me and she jokes with me saying that I behave with her like with an older partner even if she’s younger than me. I love her athletic body, her meaningful gaze, her caring soul. I love her because she gives me all I have ever wanted and even more. I love her without measure and I wish this love of us lasted forever._

_I didn’t expect to receive her declaration on a beautiful summer night. We were together watching the starry sky from our bench in the garden. The hibiscus pink flowers were gleaming under the moonlight and I could feel the delicate touch of the nocturnal breeze. The moon looked like a silver pearl in the sky. Everything was meaningful and lovely; her soft caresses on my cheeks, her warm kisses, and the love I can feel only when I’m with her. Because it’s pure love and nothing else, deep and unique. I can feel it around me when I wake up in the morning, I can sense it during the nights that aren’t lonely anymore._

_She stares at me with her gray eyes, and I believe in the honesty of her feelings and her words. There’s no place for schemes in her sincere soul. I know that when I will be back in Seoul, she will follow me soon after. I’m already searching for another person to take care of my countryside house and its secrets. Yeah, its secrets. Secrets that I don’t want to know, dark secrets I don’t want to be part of my life, ever._

*

When Sumin received from the hands of the vendor the copies of the past week’s newspapers of the city, she confirmed her initials suspicions. She found little to nothing in relation to Saehyun’s death causes. After staying until late one night trying to understand if there would be a discreet way to search for the truth, she arrived to the conclusion that she needed to talk to someone whom she had enough confidence and who was related to the medical field.

After taking an appointment for a physical checkup, she went to meet Nami’s father in the hospital where he was working. She knew from some news that Saehyun had been brought there after he had been found in his apartment. Perhaps in this hospital, she would be able to find the answer she was looking for.

The doctor was happy to see her “taking care of herself” as he had always recommended when he managed to visit her. He asked her about her health and if she was trying to eat well and having enough rest. Sumin acted as an obedient patient and answered as expected for the doctor’s satisfaction.

After he had measured her blood pressure and had gotten a sample of her blood that he put on the tray for the nurse to collect it, he tried to make a nice conversation and asked her about her life and if everything was going well in the company.

“Yeah, everything is going well, and I hope Seju Baek will be back in a month or so. I found out that her brother Saehyun died recently, but I couldn’t find enough news related to the incident. I wondered… if Seju’s family might have something to do with this.”

Sumin noticed a somehow worried look on the doctor’s face. Sumin felt bad for him. At some point, he sighed becoming pale.

“Is there something wrong?” Sumin asked.

“If I tell you something in regard to that issue, would you agree to keep it as a secret?” He said.

*

The last night he had seen Ahn in his dreams was the most terrifying of his life. That loving, sweet vision had given him the answer he had searched for all those years without results. The truth was painful and terrible. He couldn’t forgive himself for not being able to protect her when the situation had urged him to and he had allowed his father, all those years, to get away with his crime undisturbed.

He cried a lot, begging Ahn to forgive him, for his illness and his weakness. With the knowledge he supposed having of the afterlife, he thought that Ahn couldn’t rest in peace due to that murder. She was stuck in a limbo from she couldn’t get free. He thought that this was the reason he could still see her. Her tormented soul needed to be released. But how? His father was dead already; there wasn’t any way to make him pay for his crime.

Saehyun was desperate, “Why? Why?” he ruminated obsessively, without being able to sleep properly for many days. The idea that Ahn needed his father to pay for what he had done to her, consumed him.

He was sure his father had tied Ahn and perhaps drugged her to prevent resistance before eliminating her. He had relied on his own son to give a biased version of the apparent suicide. That man had counted on his ill son to trick the police and the lawyers. After Ahn had given birth, she had gotten used to some form of sleep aids and sometimes tended to abuse on them. His father had told that to the police and Saehyun had confirmed it. How stupid he had been, and innocent Ahn had paid for everything.

He should have known since that time what his father had done to her. Why the police never investigated the welts on her wrists? Had his father paid people to keep their mouths closed? He remembered caressing her pale face, kissing those green eyes he had loved so desperately… all in vain.

One night, when he couldn’t bear it anymore, he went to the district of Gangnam after midnight. He knew that he could find drug dealers around the nightclubs. He bought from one of them an unreasonable amount of heroin.

After he arrived at his apartment, he prepared the heroin to inject it directly into his veins. He had used that substance many years before in an attempt to find relief from his mental illness. It was an easy task to remember how to use it.

There was an instant and brief flash of pleasurable sensation and then everything went dark as if the drug had shut off his system completely.

In one of his last visions before dying, he saw Ahn smiling, her green eyes bright and beautiful as they were when she was still alive. She whispered, “I’m free now. You were the only person who I wanted to know the truth, you and no one else. I loved you, with your faults and all, because you were the only one who really loved me.”

*

All the way back home, Sumin wondered if it would be the case to keep the secret to herself as Nami’s father had asked. It was something appalling and she could understand why the people who were casually involved in it, like the doctor, wanted to keep it hidden. There was no benefit in telling the truth to anybody, not even to Seju. It could have made her suffer unnecessarily and she didn’t deserve it.

Sumin knew she had been selfish for not considering Seju’s feelings when they were still together, but there was no way to repair for those past faults. She always had taken Seju’s love for granted and she had been for many years a safe refuge for her sentimental disappointments. What a terrible partner she had been for her.

Sumin felt conflicted and deep inside, she knew that hiding the truth was unfair but it could be the only way to not make someone she still cared about, suffer again.

She still could sense her surprise and shock when the doctor whispered that Saehyun had been found dead in his apartment due to a lethal dose of heroin. The police had searched the place extensively to find clues in case it wasn’t an overdose accident, as it seemed at first.

They found an undeterminable number of letters, sheets of paper scattered around the house, from the living room to the bedroom, all of them had written the name of his father and the word “murderer” in capital letters. One of the letters contained also a confession and an explanation of a suicidal intent. They didn’t know how to deal with it. Seju’s family had a great influence on important businessmen and politicians.

The police decided to interview the family members before talking to any reporter. All of Saehyun’s siblings were present to that meeting except for Seju, whose absence was explained with the natural recovering of a deeply attached daughter to the loss of her father. They said she wasn’t ready to deal again with all the sad details regarding the loss of another family member.

“It would be too much for that poor girl,” one of her brothers had said.

The doctor had gained this precious information thanks to a prominent prosecutor of the city who was a friend of him.

Sumin had enough time to reflect on everything while going back home using the bus. She preferred to use it when she wasn’t in the mood to drive in the middle of the usual city traffic.

She had taken the morning off to go to the hospital, but in the afternoon, she went to the office by car as her usual.

That evening after going back home with Sungji, she embraced her after closing the apartment’s door. Sungji was gentle and responsive, yet she said:

“Is there something that is worrying you?” she asked cupping Sumin’s face with her delicate hands and by doing so, she realized that she was crying.

“I got to know something awful today and I’m afraid it would be wrong not to tell the truth to a person who is involved in that directly. I’m afraid it would be devastating for her.”

Sungji stared at her with an understandable expression and she parted her lips to tell Sumin something that might cheer her up. Her voice was caressing when she whispered:

“It’s a hard decision. When you care about someone, you have these sort of feelings because you are afraid to hurt them. I suppose hiding an awful truth would be wise if keeping silence won’t hurt others and won’t benefit anyone.”

“There are some who probably would benefit from avoiding a scandal, but this is it.”

“So, it isn’t this hard after all… to take the right decision.”

Sungji had always this adorable way to put things, going right to the point but in a tactful manner.

Sumin kissed her with gratitude and love. Sunji’s lips were soft and warm. After sliding her tongue with uncontrollable desire, she chuckled because her lover’s mouth was moist and welcoming. Sumin knew how to read that body that held no mysteries for her. Her blond partner was always so sweet and deeply passionate while showing her affection.

“So, I won’t tell her. I think she’s happy now and I want to see her like that. Perhaps you might think it is of poor taste to talk about ‘her’ in moments like these.” Sumin muttered.

“I’m not jealous of the people you once loved and I think it’s natural to still care of them. She suffered a lot, I know. As you see, I always try to understand the feelings of those I love.”

“This is the main reason I love you like no other. Surely, you know how much you mean for me, right?” Sumin whispered in her ear before nibbling the tender lobe.

“I love you too,” replied Sungji, caressing her. “I want this night to be special and to comfort you in every way. Are you hungry? I can prepare something delicious.”

“I’m hungry only of you.”

“You are so honest, my love,” Sungji replied smiling with her fine pink lips. _She is like a dream come true,_ Sumin thought.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend Cherry for the proofreading.^^


End file.
